


Halcyon Lunacy

by shootingstarcipher



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Human bill, M/M, Masturbation, Romance, Smut, older dipper
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-02 15:36:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8672884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: Bill has decided he hates the cold but there’s just one thing he doesn’t mind about it - and that’s the fact that it gives him the opportunity to get Dipper alone. Things don’t go quite the way he’s always planned though and he’s soon forced to realise that perhaps he needs Dipper for a reason other than to accomplish what he’s always dreamed he would.World domination would be nice, but being human with Pine Tree just might be even better.Winter/Christmas Special~ ^^





	1. Remember Me?

Winter was dreadful. He’d picked a terrible time to reappear after spending several years trapped in between worlds, but it would be worth it. His hard earned reward for his undeniable patience would be his to claim soon - the feeling of existing inside a real body again, the ability to pester Pine Tree and his family in person instead of being forced to watch him from distance, listening in on his dreams and nightmares but never able to reach out and touch them. Well now he was finally going to get that feeling back. He would walk behind him, following him wherever he went, physically a few steps behind but mentally a few steps ahead - always. He would always win, whatever the game. And this time, the five-year long mind game they’d been playing together would finally come to a majestic climax.

A car drove past as he stepped out onto the road. Icy, slippery, and freezing cold against his bare skin. In fact, everything was cold. He was shivering, his entire body quivering at the lack of heat. He didn’t understand. He’d never - even on the few occasions before when he’d successfully obtained a physical form, like Pine Tree’s - experienced such a lack of warmth before. But he did know that in order to keep his body, he needed to avoid the vehicles that were heading his way.

Pine Tree, on the other hand, didn’t seem to realise that. He was on the other side of the road, his gaze fixed on Bill, who grinned back at him in reply. The hat that Wendy Corduroy - or Red, as Bill preferred to call her - had given him at the end of the summer they’d spent together in Gravity Falls was still on his head, lightly dusted with snow and frost, as was his jacket. In five years, he hadn’t grown out of wearing the same clothes as he had done back when he was twelve - except that his shorts had been swapped for jeans and his dark blue gilet for a similar-looking jacket. Bill didn’t know whether to be disturbed or impressed.

As for what he was wearing, he realised now that he should have been more conscious of the climate when he was designing his body. The long, ebony overcoat and white shirt he was wearing were bad enough when it came to defending him from the snow and hail raining down from the grey skies above him, but what was ten times worse was the fact that he’d completely disregarded the importance of wearing anything on his feet.

He stepped backwards on instinct, narrowly avoiding a car as it sped past, slipping on the icy road as it raced by. But Pine Tree was still on the road, still staring off into space with a blank look on his face - in Bill’s direction. If anything happened, it would be Bill’s fault. Bill knew that but Pine Tree didn’t appear to, although he probably would have assumed it would be his fault anyway.

He got there just in time. Adrenaline took over and suddenly the cold, wintry air didn’t seem so bad. The frozen ground beneath his feet no longer seemed to chill him to his very core. His hatred of the weather - which he had inadvertently caused during the last time he tried to take over the world - no longer mattered.

He slid across the road with incredible ease, reaching out with one hand to grab at the boy’s wrist. He succeeded, but only just, and managed to knock him out of the way of a red minivan speeding towards them. But only one of them escaped. Pine Tree was fine, aside from his aching body and the cold snow seeping in through his now soaking wet clothes. Bill, on the other hand, was sent flying by the van and wound up in a heap in the middle of the road, every inch of his new body fighting off searing pain. 

He had two choices: leave his body as soon as possible and risk never getting it back, or carry on in spite of the pain. The pain wasn’t what he objected to; it was the weakness he hated. He could barely move his body and each tiny movement he managed depleted his energy completely. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Pine Tree watching him - doing nothing, but just sitting there in the snow, staring at him blankly. He refused to ask for help. He refused to be reduced to something so weak and just so… human.

But a body he couldn’t move was a body he didn’t want. He was much better off trapped in the mindscape as oppose to here in the physical world, but without the ability to move or do as he pleased. And so he made the decision to leave, banishing himself to the mindscape once again. There was a chance he could return, if he was patient enough to rebuild his physical form. He grinned to himself as he left, the world fading to grey momentarily before he vanished, knowing that he now had some ammunition to use against his target. While it hadn’t been the most successful attempt at blending in with the human world, he wasn’t completely dissatisfied.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It took him nowhere near as long to recreate his human form as it has done the first time - then he’d had to design it (which wasn’t especially difficult as he’d invaded Pine Tree’s mind to create a body he’d find appealing, knowing he’d need as much help as possible to gain the mortal’s trust) and he’d had to find someone to build the body for him as well. Now all he had to do was make another deal with that person and have them rebuild it. That wasn’t much of a challenge either, seeing as there was always something Bill could provide them with for the right price.

He should have waited. He should have waited to regain his physical existence before announcing his presence to the human again as he’d planned, but he was just too impatient (and besides, what he really needed now that he had realised how difficult it was for human bodies to survive, was to give Pine Tree an incentive to accept his presence by making a deal). Now that he had been made aware of the difficulties of human life - as well as dealing with his own confusion over why he had bothered to put his own safety on the line for a mere mortal he had mixed feelings about - he decided to focus on finding someone to educate him in human matters he understood next to nothing about. And who better to do that than Pine Tree?

Of course, it went without saying that he’d need some convincing, but Bill had just saved his life, hadn’t he? So by his reckoning, Pine Tree owed him a favour.

Growing impatient, he revealed himself to him sooner than he’d intended. Instead of waiting, he drifted off into the human’s dreams the next time he slept. The world darkened as he appeared to him, pushing his way into the dream and manipulating it as he went. The sky above was black and bare - no clouds, no stars, and no moonlight. The grass beneath them was dark and thick and roots from the colossal tree standing behind the human suddenly came to life, snaking their way around his wrists and ankles and ensnaring him in their trap.

The familiar look of fear and alarm in the human’s eyes delighted the demon and he laughed out loud at the sight of it. “Remember me, kid? Of course you do!” he blurted out without waiting for an answer. The sound of his voice resulted in the mortal recoiling in horror, which only served to amuse Bill even more. “I expected you to be a bit more grateful after all I’ve done for you, Pine Tree,” the demon mocked, nonchalantly inspecting his fingertips.

“What?” Pine Tree practically yelled at him, hands curling into fists as he struggled to fight off the roots that were slowly coiling around his body. “What have you ever done for me? Aside from ruin my life, obviously.”

Bill gawked at him in mock horror. “What have I ever done for you? Ruin your life? I saved your life!” His single eye flashed crimson for a split second and his hands balled into fists by his sides before he succeeded in calming himself down with the idea that the boy would soon be on his side if only he gave himself the chance to explain what he needed from him. Anger was clearly not the way to convince Pine Tree to give in. He knew that from experience.

“That was you, then? It really was you?” Just as Bill had managed to calm himself down, Pine Tree had also exchanged his anger for something else entirely - confusion. It was obvious to Bill that he couldn’t comprehend why he would choose to defend him - or even how he had returned from what had previously been seen as his death - but not even Bill himself understood exactly why he’d done that.

“Of course it was,” the demon replied casually, tilting himself backwards slightly. “As I said, Pine Tree, I saved you! And this is how you thank me? It’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

The mortal frowned at him in response, recognising that he should have already realised the demon would have an ulterior motive. “And what did you have in mind then? I’m sure I don’t want to know, but…”

“Nothing much,” Bill interrupted hastily, his eye squinting into a devilish grin as he floated closer to him and slung his arm around the human’s shoulders. Pine Tree shuddered and stepped away from him in response to his unwanted touch but the demon, being stronger than him, pulled him closer and crushed him to his side. “Saving you made me realise how easy it is for humans to die, kid, and now I…” He paused, contemplating how he was going to phrase his request. “You owe me, Pine Tree. You realise that, don’t you?”

The boy took a moment to consider his answer before nodding silently, his heart filled with regret. As far as he was concerned, it would have been better to die and avoid having to owe anything to Bill Cipher, but what was done was done and now he had no idea what the demon was going to demand from him.

“Good. Then you know you have to do whatever I want you to,” Bill went on and the human nodded silently once again. “Naturally, I’ll attach a deal to it. So here it is,” he started, holding out his hand as an all too familiar blue flame manifested an inch or so above his palm. “For the next few months, you ensure my safety as a human and, as long as you do it well, after the last day of spring I’ll leave you and your family alone - forever. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Of course it was. It’s all he’d wanted ever since the first time he and his sister had gone to Gravity Falls. But he’d thought it was over. Obviously that wasn’t true, but he hadn’t realised it until Bill’s reappearance. Even in spite of the remaining effects of Weirdmaggedon - like the affected weather and the flashbacks he couldn’t fight off - he’d thought that ever since the demon had been erased from his uncle’s mind, the madness had stopped. No more glancing over his shoulder, paranoid that he was being watched. No more fearing for his or anyone else’s safety. Gravity Falls was a summer holiday gone wrong, but a peaceful one at that. No more Bill Cipher.

He could have that peace again. In just a few months, if he played his cards right, he could regain the freedom he’d once felt. All he had to do was surrender, just for the time being.

Bill’s grin widened as the boy reached out to shake his hand. Pine Tree still had a lot of questions - he could hear them screaming at him inside his mind - and all of them would be answered eventually. All he needed right then was for the deal to be made. After that, all either of them could do was wait.


	2. Childish Fantasy

The glass was cold against his hands, shocking him when he reached out and pressed his palms against the icy window pane. A perfectly preserved spider web had been spun across each corner, their delicacy screaming at him to break them into a thousand fragile pieces of soft white elegance. He fought off the temptation, fixing his golden gaze onto the flawless image of beauty before him.

Inside, just on the other side of the glass window, was a seamless picture of warmth. Dark red walls were adorned with gold and purple decorations he couldn’t remember the name of, the carpeted floor was covered in silver glitter and every mahogany table had upon it a centrepiece consisting of a golden candelabrum with a red ribbon tied around it in a bow. But more importantly, across the room was a black leather armchair and in that armchair sat Bill’s target and the human he found most intriguing: Pine Tree, Dipper Pines.

Dipper was leaning over the circular table in front of him, staring down hard at the open notebook on the table even though the page was blank, completely oblivious to the fact that the demon was watching him from outside. But the blond had no intention to remain outside for much longer. He’d been stood there for ten minutes, keeping his gaze trained on the mortal inside until he finally pushed open the door and stepped into the coffee shop, immediately grinning to himself in response to both the sudden overwhelming feeling of warmth and the knowledge that the look on Pine Tree’s face when their gazes met would be priceless.

And it was. The bell hanging in front of the door rang when he opened it, signalling his arrival. Dipper looked up the moment he heard it and instantly regretted that simple action of lifting up his head and looking in the direction of the door. An enormous smile spreading across his face, the demon waved at him and headed in his direction. As he approached the table and took a seat opposite the mortal, Dipper’s face fell, inadvertently eliciting a quiet chuckle from the blond.

“Why are you here?” Pine Tree hissed, leaning over the table to scowl at him.

“You know why I’m here,” Bill replied casually, tilting himself back to slouch in his chair with an air of arrogance that made Dipper’s insides flip and his toes curl. “You can’t expect me to wander around on my own, kid. I’m not used to this. After all, you saw how this turned out last time.” The brunet swallowed audibly out of worry as he thought back to the few hours he’d spent existing outside his own body when the demon had forced him out and possessed his body against his will, the memory making him shudder at the thought that it could happen again if he wasn’t careful.

“This body is irritating,” the blond suddenly blurted out, interrupting the human’s thoughts. “Explain what I’m meant to do now, Pine Tree. I demand it.”

Not knowing where to begin, Dipper simply shrugged and ignored him, turning back to the blank page staring up at him. As he turned to look at it and Bill also leaned over to inspect the page the human seemed to be finding so interesting, the sound of footsteps and a shadow casting itself over the table confirmed the presence of a waiter carrying a tray in his hands. Bill’s attention was immediately stolen by the tall glass the waiter deposited onto the table and, as soon as the waiter disappeared, he reached out and grabbed it with both hands, only to yelp in pain the instant he touched it.

Recognising that he would do better to keep away from it, he lowered his hands to the table but still peered at the glass, sniffing the air in confusion at the sweet scent the glass was emanating. A white, frothy substance was spilling from the top of the glass and below it was the dark liquid the sweet aroma was coming from. “What is that?” he whispered as quietly as he found possible - which was still much louder than a human would have done - as his gaze flickered up to stare at Pine Tree dead in the eyes before re-focusing on the glass.

“You’ve never had hot chocolate before?” Dipper asked, perplexed by his lack of knowledge when it came to the human world. “Haven’t you been watching us for… since the beginning of humanity?”

Bill grinned up at him and nodding eagerly. “Since before. So,” he added after a moment or two. “What are those things next to it?” He leaned slightly closer, peering at the small pink and white lumps on the saucer upon which the glass was standing.

“Marshmallows,” the brunet replied without looking up from the blank page in his notebook. “Try one if you want,” he added, neither of them understanding why he was offering them to him. Bill sniffed the air one more time before picking up a pastel pink marshmallow between his thumb and index finger and bringing it to his lips. Opening his mouth, he bit off a tiny fraction of the marshmallow, chewed it up and - making a disappointed face in the process - spat it out directly onto the mortal’s notebook.

The boy brushed it off without a word and continued to ignore him, even though the demon was doing his best to silently capture his attention by repeatedly kicking his legs under the table. Eventually, when enough time had passed so that the hot chocolate had cooled down to a temperature that wouldn’t burn Dipper’s tongue if he tried to drink it, he looked up at the blond and told him to stop. Bill had to hand it to him; he had been incredibly patient with him. But now he was getting to the end of his tether and snapped at him to go away.

Bill’s heart immediately sunk. He covered it up with a manic grin.

“Can’t I just enjoy being around you? I mean, we’ve had our differences in the past… But I thought we were over that now.” Pine Tree wasn’t buying it and Bill didn’t blame him - he hadn’t expected him to anyway.

“Bill, I’m trying to work,” Dipper snapped at him, glaring. But after a second, he returned his attention to the blank page of his notebook and took a pen out of his jacket pocket, leaning over to write something. Before his pen touched the page, however, he loosened his grip on it and dropped it onto the table, sighing heavily in frustration.

Still grinning, the blond chuckled in delight at his frustration. “No you’re not. You can’t think of anything. Just give up, Pine Tree. There’s no point.” He knew very well what the human was attempting to do. Sometime over the last week, he’d happened across a sign-up sheet for a new extra-curricular class - creative writing - and signed up for it. But now he had the trouble of choosing a subject for his work and was having a hard time coming up with ideas. Bill, on the other hand, came up with one straight away. “Write about me! Who I mean, who wouldn’t want to read about me? Your class will love it!”

Dipper shook his head immediately but then paused to think more carefully about his suggestion, which he had initially thought of as nothing more than a joke. He hummed quietly to himself as he considered it, gazing up at the demon with a thoughtful look on his face. “Maybe. I’ll think about it.” Slamming his notebook shut and returning his pen to his jacket pocket, the mortal curled his hand around the glass containing his hot chocolate and lifted it to his lips, beginning to sip it slowly.

Once he was finished and Bill had - rather disconcertingly - watched him pay for his drink, he stood up and headed towards the door, slipping his notebook into his backpack as he got up. Bill bounded over to him like a lost dog, following in his footsteps as he strode out the door. Slinging an arm over the human’s shoulders - and immediately being pushed away - he eagerly asked where they were going next even though he already knew the answer. Home. They were going home. Not to his home - not that he really had one - but to Pine Tree’s home.

It would have been preferable to him if he’d had somewhere to call his home again, like he did trillions of years ago, but maybe that had never really been his home. It never really felt like it. That was just some childish fantasy, the idea that he’d ever have a home again. But maybe, just for now, Pine Tree’s home could be his.


	3. Sweet

It was all beginning to look the same as far as Bill was concerned. He wondered if any mortal thought the same, every street Pine Tree led him down looking almost exactly like any other one they’d already passed through. Snowdrops littered the streets, crushed into the pavement by the many footsteps that had already encountered them, leaving behind a cold, slushy mess that Bill had no intention of walking through. But he had no choice. He tried walking on the edge of the pavement, right next to the road, but cars kept sliding past too close for comfort and startling him so he reluctantly gave in and followed in Pine Tree’s wake.

As they walked, Dipper kept his gaze fixed straight ahead of him and never once glanced back at the demon to check he was still there - not that he needed to. The sound of his black leather boots trampling over the remnants of snow and ice was enough to alert him to his constant presence; that was without the demon repeatedly complaining about the snow he was trudging through. Behind him, Bill stared at the back of the brunet’s head for most of the time, though he often glanced up at his surroundings whenever he got bored.

Each street they walked down was lined with houses, each of them virtually identical. Snow lightly dusted the roofs of each one and every so often the blond looked up at them, fascinated by strange cold substance his attempt at claiming the world as his own had brought. But when some cold and wet slammed into his back without any hint of a warning and he found that his jacket was suddenly caked in snow, he started walking faster and quickly caught up to the mortal he was following with an infuriated scowl on his face.

Snowballs, apparently. Someone had found it amusing to throw snowballs at him. That’s how Pine Tree explained it anyway. He’d seen it before but it had never happened to him. He wondered why humans found it so entertaining when as far as he was concerned it was just a way to ruin a good suit. And he was adamant that he would never stoop so low as to engage in such unruly behaviour during the few months he was planning on staying there. Pine Tree laughed at him for that remark, claiming that he should be ashamed of himself for being so childish and pathetic. In return Bill insisted that he was neither childish nor pathetic and that he would not be ashamed of himself for anything, and in doing so unintentionally proved the mortal’s point.

By the time they reached the building the mortal called his home the snow on the back of Bill’s jacket had soaked through his clothes and he was shivering slightly, his mind screaming out because he wasn’t used to feeling so cold. He wasn’t used to feeling anything really though. It was all so overwhelming.

When they approached the front door of the house Dipper led the way up the steps and onto the porch, stretching his arm out in front of him to open the door. But the door, strangely enough, was locked and so he had to root around in his jacket pocket to find his key. As they stepped into the house once the door had been unlocked, Bill couldn’t help but smirk at the idea that the house was empty and that for whatever reason, Mabel wasn’t going to be around for the time being. He preferred it that way. Too many mortals and he got annoyed. Pine Tree was enough.

The house was exactly how he’d expected it to be. Having spent several years watching Pine Tree like a hawk from a distance, he knew the layout of the house like the back of his hand and strode in the moment the door opened, pushing past the mortal and heading towards the living room, knowing full well Pine Tree would follow after him. “Nice house, kid,” he smirked as he collapsed on the black leather sofa facing the television set, letting out a heavy sigh as if he’d had an exhausting day even though he was well aware that Pine Tree’s had been much harder than his own.

Dipper said nothing as he closed the front door and followed him into the living room, perching precariously on the same sofa the demon was sitting on but keeping as far away from him as the furniture would allow. But then he noticed the sinister looking smirk on his face and felt the need to speak up. “You knew they’d all be out, didn’t you? You knew… Where are they? Did you do something?”

Bill was aware that there was no doubt in the human’s mind that he had orchestrated some sort of evil scheme in order to get the two of them to be left alone for god knows how long, but in all honesty he hadn’t done anything and he told Dipper that outright. He had known, of course, that there was a possibility of this happening. But he hadn’t known that Shooting Star wouldn’t have gotten home at her usual time, or that something would stop their parents from getting home either.

“Forget about them for a minute, will you, Pine Tree! You spend so much time obsessing over them all, worrying about them, wondering where they are! They’re fine, alright? They’re absolutely fine!”

Neither of them knew exactly what to say after his outburst so they simply sat there staring at the floor in total silence. It took Bill a few minutes to calm himself down after getting not only frustrated with Dipper for always being so concerned with his family but also frustrated with himself for allowing his envy to show. However, it was nothing more than a momentary lapse in the grand scheme of things. He still had several months to convince Pine Tree he was worth more than the useless, irritating family he was always going on about.

“Look, kid, nothing happened to them. I just don’t want you to worry.” He was telling the truth - mainly - although Dipper clearly didn’t believe that. Nothing had happened to them and he really didn’t want him to worry - about them, but he would have appreciated the brunet getting worried about him even though there was nothing for him to be concerned about. “Anyway,” he added after a moment. “There are things we can do without them, you know.” 

All he wanted at that particular moment was to be part of Pine Tree’s life again - and to revel in his hatred of him, of course. It was amusing, the way the mortal shifted in his seat every time he got too close and how his eyes darted about in search of a clue to his ulterior motives. Bill just didn’t want to be forgotten. This, as far as he was concerned, was the only way to make sure Pine Tree never stop thinking about him.

Without a word, Dipper stood up and shrugged off his backpack, taking out his notebook again and staring blankly at the first page as he sat back down - which was still completely void of any words or lettering which the mortal had been meaning to write down. Taking his pen out of his pocket, he wrote at the top of the page “Bill Cipher?” and underlined it with one swift movement. Leaning over to watch him, Bill grinned at the human’s apparent realisation that nothing else interesting enough to write about was occurring in his life. Years ago, he would have written about his time in Gravity Falls but now he was beginning to believe it hadn’t really happened. Mabel hardly talked about it and no-one else would listen - no-one else but Bill.

After a moment of staring vacantly at the page, Dipper shuffled further away from the demon again and closed his notebook, tucking it under his arm. “I’m going to my room,” he announced as he stood up from the sofa again. Bill would follow him. They both knew that and besides, Dipper had no intention of leaving the demon downstairs alone.

Once they reached his bedroom - which he no longer had to share with Mabel as the spare room had been re-decorated for her a few years ago - Dipper sat at his desk and ignored the demon’s presence while Bill splayed out on the bed, breathing in the human’s sweet scent from the duvet and pillows. “Could you… maybe not do that?” Dipper asked in a surprisingly polite manner, glancing nervously at the blond over his shoulder. “It’s weird.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention?” Bill scoffed at him, rolling his eye (an eyepatch, which was somewhat uncomfortable, covered the gaping hole where his right eye should have been). “Weird is what I’m all about.” But he got off the bed anyway and started wandering around the room, examining each part of it. He knew where Pine Tree kept his diary and considered it a good place to start, so he opened up the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, rifled through the decoy notebooks the mortal kept on top of his diary and slid out the book he wanted to get his hands on: the black leather paperback, each page littered with Pine Tree’s writing.

Then he sat back down on the bed - perching on the edge this time - and started reading. He flicked through the pages to April the 28th and started reading from a random paragraph. On that day, April the 28th, Dipper had written mainly about his sister. He’d written that he still worried about her whenever they weren’t together, that it reminded him of Weirdmaggedon. Bill smirked at that - until he read the next paragraph.

He hated himself. Dipper Pines - who Bill had known to be insecure but not to such an extent - hated himself. He hated himself for agreeing to be his uncle’s apprentice even though he had turned his offer down not long after accepting it, even though it was years ago and as far as Mabel was concerned, water under the bridge. But it was still stuck in his mind that if he hadn’t chosen to accept his uncle’s offer, his sister would never have run off without him and Weirdmaggedon would never have happened. Bill already knew that Shooting Star took no responsibility for what had happened - she had only been a child, after all - but he hadn’t realised that Pine Tree blamed himself for it.

In Bill’s opinion, neither of them was to blame. Weirdmaggedon was the finale of a carefully devised plan that only he had had anything to do with and only he was going to take credit for.

Closing the diary, he shoved it back into the drawer (burying it beneath the handful of decoys) and slammed the drawer shut. “Pine Tree,” he started, standing up and turning to face him. Dipper swung round and looked at him, waiting to hear what he was going to say but Bill wound up saying nothing, not understanding how best to convey that he wasn’t to blame for the event that almost killed those closest to him - and even doubting whether he should tell him that after all. “Pine Tree,” he said again after clearing his throat. “Why exactly do you write everything down in that book of yours? If you want to keep secrets, why not just keep them to yourself instead of writing it all down and risking people finding it?”

For a minute or so, Dipper simply stared at him and sighed. “So you read it? Or… Or you already knew it all…” He trailed off and paused, looking thoughtful. “It helps - writing, I mean. It helps me get through it.”

“Get through what?” The demon frowned at him, unable to understand what he seemed to be having trouble coping with. But humans were weak, weren’t they? Bill could imagine they’d have difficulties dealing with a great number of things. But he’d thought Pine Tree was different - resilient, determined. That’s why he liked him so much.

Dipper shrugged in reply and shook his head. “Just… things. Everything. You didn’t exactly make life easy for me back then, you know?”

Amused by his despair, Bill smirked at him and then grinned. “I don’t intend to make life easy you now either.” He really didn’t. The harder, the better. As Dipper turned back to his desk to carry on with his writing (or lack of), Bill laid back down on the bed and rubbed his head against one of the pillows, struggling to find a comfortable position, when his gaze landed on the headboard and he noticed something he’d never noticed before. Scratched into the wood was a symbol - small, barely noticeable, but it was still there. A triangle, two sides of equal length, with a single eye in the centre.

Idiot, he thought to himself as he gazed at it, smiling even though his instincts told him it was stupid. Sometimes Pine Tree was too sweet for his own good. Sometimes Bill Cipher was too bitter to realise it.


	4. Moonlight

He hadn’t expected to be ignored nearly as much as he was being. For over an hour, the human sat with his back to him, desperately trying to forget the demon’s presence in spite of the deal they’d already made - that he would take care of him and that he would make sure he experienced everything humanity had to offer until the first day of summer. Bill was left to his own devices while he sat in his desk chair scribbling away every five minutes or so in his notebook and, easily finding himself getting bored with snooping around the mortal’s bedroom, he turned his attention to the rest of the house and crept out through the door, successfully slipping out without being noticed.

He knew that Shooting Star would be back within a couple of hours and, although Pine Tree had been frantically texting her in between sentences over the last hour and a half, he had no intention of telling him where she was or why she wasn’t replying. Their parents, however, he knew wouldn’t be back for quite a while. His sister would tell him all about that when she came home so why would he, who had no desire to cut their time alone together short, bother telling him something he would later find out anyway? As he slipped into Shooting Star’s bedroom - the room next to Pine Tree’s - he considered the possibility that Dipper would be furious with him for not mentioning it to him. With a smirk on his face, he closed the door behind him and bolted it.

The room was even more childish and feminine than he’d remembered (though spending far more time watching Pine Tree than his twin sister naturally created a lack of knowledge about the latter). Pastel pink walls greeted his gaze and lilac carpet ran underfoot, though he could hardly see any of it for the heaps of clothes and stuffed animals lying around. Her bed - pink and purple in colour, as was most of the furniture - was messily made and covered in pillows, cushions and toy animals that were so cute and pretty he couldn’t help but scoff at. This was Shooting Star to a tee. No wonder he’d always preferred Pine Tree.

Shaking his head in disgust, he turned back to the door, unlocked it and headed out onto the landing. Having now realised that he was missing, Pine Tree had wandered out of his room in search of the demon, who grinned devilishly at him when their gazes met. The mortal sighed heavily at him but the blond pushed past him and trudged back into his bedroom without putting up a fight, too relieved that he’d finally attracted the human’s attention to think about ruining it by running off somewhere else; if he’d done that, Dipper might not have bothered to chase after him.

This time, Bill stayed standing by the door while the human sloped off to the bed, slipping in between the sheets and pulling the blanket over his body as he closed his eyes, though he was still awake and conscious of the blond’s presence. With his back pressed against the wall behind him, the demon kept his gaze fixed on the mortal, smirking as he watched him repeatedly open and close his eyes, wary of letting his guard down.

“You’re clearly tired, Pine Tree,” Bill observed, moving to sit beside him on the bed. Dipper simply groaned in response, wishing he wasn’t there. “Just go to sleep. I’ll look after the house. And in a couple of hours when Shooting Star gets back, I’ll wake you up. Sound okay?” He honestly thought Pine Tree would be pleased with him - after all, this was the first time he’d really tried to be anything but hateful or irritating towards him.

Unfortunately, the mortal hadn’t heard anything after his mention of his sister and sat bolt upright, whipping his head round to face him. “You know where she is?” he growled, glowering straight at him with a snarl. “I knew it! I knew you had something to do with it!” He didn’t seem to notice the look of hurt on the demon’s face, not even stopping to consider that he might have been telling the truth earlier when he’d said he had nothing to worry about.

“Easy, kid. I really didn’t do anything - honest.” Bill tilted his head onto one side as he spoke, a gesture which could have easily been mistaken as sarcasm even though he was trying to appear genuine. “Like I said, you should sleep,” he continued after a moment, when Dipper had calmed down slightly although he was still glaring and gritting his teeth. “And when Shooting Star - I mean Mabel - gets back, I’ll wake you up. Seriously, kid, I’m not lying. I promise.” He gave a lopsided grin and held his hands up to show that he wasn’t crossing his fingers and that’s when Pine Tree finally started to hate him a little bit less.

Lying down again (on his back, staring up at the tiled ceiling with his hands resting on his chest), the mortal gave a half-hearted groan and muttered something along the lines of “You better not be” under his breath. Then he closed his eyes, glancing in the blond’s direction one last time before doing so, and was fast asleep within minutes.

The demon spent the next ten minutes or so watching him sleep, fascinated by the look of tranquillity on his face and the rising and falling of his chest as he took long, slow breaths while he slept. It even seemed to soothe him, watching the sleeping mortal as he tried to match their breathing patterns. Then he moved, pulling the blanket away from Dipper’s body and moving to kneel in between his legs. This was the perfect opportunity for him to really see what a human was like - just to make sure he’d gotten the design of his own human body one hundred percent correct.

Cautiously, and as gently as he possibly could (which wound up being quite rough by Pine Tree’s standards, although his lack of consciousness meant he was unaware of the demon’s actions), he reached out and jabbed at the human’s face with his index finger. His skin was soft - even softer than he’d expected it to be - and the mortal shifted at his touch, shivering in response. After a few minutes, Bill stopped and dropped his hand to his side, considering which part of Dipper’s body to investigate next whilst absentmindedly entangling his fingers in the human’s dark messy hair, coiling the strands around his fingers and tugging lightly.

The chest. His gaze dropped to Pine Tree’s chest and he leaned down, reaching out to lift up the mortal’s faded red t-shirt. He ran his fingers over Dipper’s stomach, rubbing the soft flesh hard with his hand. He was starting to forget why he was doing it. Fascination was taking over him and the feeling of warmth radiating from the human’s body was too tempting to ignore. He hadn’t felt anything at all in such a long time. It was all so new to him - new and irresistible.

Dipper stirred in his sleep as the demon dragged his hand further down his body, relishing in the warmth the human’s body was sending to the palm of his hand. His fingers played with the zip of his jeans for a moment or two before Dipper stirred in his sleep again, this time rolling onto his side. Bill kept his hand where it was, pressing down until he felt the normally soft flesh beneath his hand harden slightly, at which point he sat back up and pulled away, half in shock and half in curiosity.

This couldn’t have been normal - not even for humans. And yet surely if something unusual was happening to his body, Pine Tree would have woken up? Striving to get away from him in case whatever was wrong with him spread to his own body, Bill untangled Dipper’s legs - which had coiled themselves around him when the mortal had rolled over onto his side - and jumped up from the bed, bounding over to the other side of the room where he stood with his back to the window and his gaze fixated on the sleeping, perplexing human.

Now that the demon was out of the way, Dipper rolled over again - half onto his front and half still on his side this time. As he moved, a soft, quiet moan escaped his lips and suddenly everything became clear. That sound. Bill recognised that sound and he knew what was happening immediately. Realising it was normal and he had nothing to fear, the blond returned to his place on the bed and sat beside the mortal in silence, watching and listening.

He’d seen him like this before - lying back on his bed with his hand shoved down the front of his jeans, breathing hard and moaning every time he felt he couldn’t fight his compulsions. Sometimes it happened like this, in his sleep, completely unaware of what he was doing as he ground himself against the mattress beneath him. But more often than not, he waited until he was in the house alone or when he knew he definitely wouldn’t be disturbed. So really, it was a good thing that his family hadn’t come back, though Bill was painfully aware that Dipper wouldn’t see it in the same way.

Dipper woke up with a start - through no fault of Bill’s - and instinctively covered himself with the blanket the demon had discarded. He scowled in the blond’s direction, only eliciting a smirk from the latter, and turned away from him, hugging his knees to chest. Even the demon knew that he hadn’t achieved the height of pleasure his body wanted him to experience and so he also realised how uncomfortable he was - and physical discomfort always came with irritability and resentment when it came to humans like Pine Tree.

“Could you…” Dipper started, glancing down at himself anxiously. “Is Mabel back yet?” he asked, suddenly changing conversation topics. Bill shook his head in reply and Dipper looked somewhat disappointed, but slightly relieved. “Right. Could you… leave? Or… Never mind. I’ll go in the bathroom. You stay here. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

Bill knew exactly what the mortal was intending to do and just as he stood up from the bed to head towards the bathroom, he reached out and grabbed hold of his wrist, preventing him from leaving. “Wait,” he snapped as his fingers wrapped around the human’s arm, shackling them together. Due to his somewhat advanced hearing (a design choice he was most proud of, considering it gave him the opportunity to prove undeniably that he was far superior to any mere mortal, such as Pine Tree or any of his human relatives), he had heard the sound of a key being shoved into the lock of the front door and then twisted, alerting him to Shooting Star’s presence downstairs. “Mabel’s home,” he simpered, attempting to smile warmly though he just ended up looking sarcastic.

He knew that, in a way, this wasn’t the news Dipper had been hoping to hear. Although he was glad to know that his sister was alive and presumably well (well enough to get home at least), the discomfort and frustration in the lower half of his body was making him irritable and part of him wished she hadn’t gotten home just yet - just so that he’d have another ten minutes or so by to relieve himself of the tension.

“Fine,” he grumbled after considering his predicament. “I’ll go and make sure she’s okay and find out what took so long. You hide out in here for a while - and don’t make a sound. I don’t want anyone finding out you’re here.”

“None taken,” the demon muttered under his breath as the mortal pulled away from him and trudged out of the room, because it would have been a lie to say that he wasn’t even slightly stung by the human’s desire to keep him a secret from the rest of his family - even Shooting Star, who he was closest to. Maybe it was a good thing, he tried to tell himself as he sat back down on the edge of the mortal’s bed. Maybe it meant he wanted to keep him all to himself, which was the way he felt about Dipper. He smiled to himself as he lay back on the bed and stretched out his limbs but only for a moment before he almost instantly became bored with Pine Tree’s absence.

So he crept to the top of the stairs, planning on listening in on the humans’ conversation when Dipper suddenly came running towards him, a panicked look on his face. Mabel came into the hallway and opened her mouth in shock at the prospect that her brother had been in the house with a mysterious blond stranger while she had been away but Dipper interrupted her before she could speak, yelling at the demon to hurry up and come with them, simultaneously failing to explain where it was they were going.

But Bill already knew. He knew, as they stepped out into the dark, moonlit street with snow crumbling under their feet with every step they took, that they were headed towards the hospital. But Dipper was clueless as to what awaited him there - utterly oblivious when it came to the realisation that someone in his family might never see or hear him ever again.


End file.
